Every day we are bombarded with photographic and other types of imagery that communicate to the conscious and unconscious mind, often seductively, often repulsively, and, at times, with the energy of archetypal symbolism mobilizing deep feeling. As dreamers, artists, and citizens, we sometimes are able to give expression to our deepest yearnings, fears, beliefs, and perceptions through what C.G. Jung called “the creative unconscious.”
This lecture will explore how we are all influenced–in our individual and group psyches–by the symbolic images that emerge from the “creative unconscious. Dr. Singer will explore these themes through introducing ARAS, a wonderful, modern internet tool that contains, sorts, and displays archetypal imagery and symbolism. The site grew out of the ERANOS conferences in Ascona, Switzerland in the 1930’s, which brought together the world’s leading scholars in mythology, art history, theology, physics and other interdisciplinary studies. ARAS Online carries on that tradition by exploring symbolic imagery from every culture and era. We will look at how ARAS helps artists, dreamers, psychologists, and scholars place their images in symbolic context. Thomas Singer, M.D. is the editor of ARAS Connections and the author of many books on culture, mythology, and politics.
Bio: Thomas Singer is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, and author. He attended Princeton University and majored in Religion and European Literature. He trained at Yale Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, and the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. He has been practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1970. He writes on Jungian theory, politics, and psychology, and his recent books include The Vision Thing: Myth, Politics and Psyche in the World (2000); The Cultural Complex: Contemporary Jungian Perspectives on Psyche and Society(2004); Initiation: The Living Reality of An Archetype (2007); Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis (2010); Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche (2011) with Virginia Beane Rutter. His newest books, Placing Psyche: Exploring the Cultural Complexes of Australia (2011) and Listening to Latin America (2012), explore cultural complexes in a Spring Journal Books Series.
